The Time War
by Gavvy Wolf-Kidd
Summary: Hiya- I wrote this ages ago for a competition. Suffice to say, it won me first place. My take on how the Time War started from the 10th Doctor's POV, lol. Enjoy


**THE TIME WAR**

Hannah Clark

Dragon's fire. Hell's brimstone. The Devil's tongue lashing with sick delight as my home is engulfed in a single sweep of angered, fiery leaves. The ashes fall away as tears hit the floor of my TARDIS.

Burnt orange skies.

Hills of red grass capped with snow.

Twin Suns.

It's all gone.

I turn away from the carnage and howl. How could he do this? How could he destroy our home with such sadism? Was he sick?

***

Growing up, I was lonely. I had nobody. Parents loved me, but Dad wasn't the kind for hugging if you found a few scratches here and there. He loved me in a 'subtle' way. Despite that, I ended up as one of the Scientists for the Gallifreyan government.

As a Scientist for Gallifrey, my duty was to travel the Universe. Visit planets. Assess scientific activity. Completely peaceful. We just wanted to improve our own Timelord Science, although many felt it was where we _couldn't_ improve it due to our ability to make objects bigger internally.

I had a partner. A childhood friend, actually.

He was alright. A little whacky. If I thought we should increase the sub-atomic molecular structure of a neutron collider at a rate of twelve seconds to the hour, he'd take the idea and adapt it so that it wouldn't be _twelve_ seconds to the hour, but rather _one_ second to _twelve_ hours. Slow as a snail's pace. Luckily, I had my sonic screwdriver. I'd follow him, check his records. Scan his experiments with it, take readings. Plotted them. Saw something in the patterns. Everything would go positively, then crash and decline. Then it up again. Decline. Decline more. Then it would ascend again!

He came to the Lab one day. No big deal. It's what he said that made us stand en guard.

"Good news!" He laughed. He'd returned from a trip to Earth.

"What's good?" I asked. We were alone.

"Daleks are invading!" He sang.

My stomach bombed.

His eyes were bright.

"How can that be _good_?" I screamed through gritted teeth.

He waltzed up to my desk and picked up one of the test tubes I'd been examining- stabilised nitro-glycerine- and fiddled with it. It reminded me of when Dad would hide my chemistry set- he felt Science wasn't manly enough for me. The Master laughed, throwing the tube into the air. I panicked- I didn't trust it in any hands other than mine.

"What are you- put that down!" I grabbed the tube from him and slid it into the rack. "Now," I gasped, "what's so good?!"

He stared back at me with a goofy look.

"It's good," he said, spacing his words, "because Davros challenged us to something ridiculously _easy_!"

"Right." I said in a dismissive tone of voice, "That easy thing being…?"

"Earth football."

I should have known it'd be a mistake to agree to Davros's deal.

"Remember," The Master said as we huddled, "GALLIFREY ALL THE WAY!"

The team shouted with enthusiasm- except me. the cheesy rhyme should have put me out of my misery, but I knew there was something wrong. Daleks were basically robots. No legs, shells of metal, eyestalk their _only_ way of perceiving depth, and their arms! Not even _arms_- just stalks which waved about and fired hyper-proton lasers.

"Doctor!" The Master said as he slapped me. "Why aren't you enthusiastic?"

I recoiled and slapped him back.

"Point taken." He growled. Something was wrong with the picture.

Referee. Dalek. Thought nothing of it at the time- it was a game of football as far as we were concerned.

Alarm bells rang inside my head as the referee let out a noise which I guessed was the signal for the match to start. Ace footballer, me. Off-side, tackle, strike… name it. I was _brilliant_ at it. That's something I never told my old dad- that I was good at sports. He'd have _forced_ me to quit Science. If I quit Science, maybe…

"TIME-LORDS WIN!" The referee beeped as the winning goal was scored. We cheered for one second. Our last sounds of joy run cold by Davros as he announced a hidden clause to the deal.

I looked up as I heard laughter. Davros. Father of Daleks. Old man top half, but lower half Dalek. He laughed and his neck wobbled as he spoke.

"Timelords!" His voice was amplified. "You fools!" Gasps of confusion. I kept my eyes on Davros as all around me turned around sat stunned.

He laughed and explained how he had taken over Gallifrey while we were all concentrating on the match.

I don't want to go into what happened. I'll say three days of warfare- Timelords versus Daleks. The Master's clothes were found by the vortex. He probably went to Skaro. Wouldn't surprise me.

***

I lay on the floor of the TARDIS. Golden walls, transmat-converter, and complex instruments which drive it should cheer me up don't.

The alert-system all TARDIS's had took me away from the wreckage. That's how I survived. Pure accident because the Time Converter exploded. Now, everyone's dead.

They were proud. Mighty. Peaceful, but we caved in eventually.

I watch as Gallifrey becomes a shower of dust, laugh as children of Skaro burn, and cry as I realise how much this has changed me already.

Never thought I'd be ready to be alone again. I had a rubbish childhood, but my adulthood was okay- I had people to love who loved me back.

Apparently if you look into the vortex, something happens to you. They reckon the Master went mad when he stared into it- that's what normally happens. Others gain inspiration. Others run away. And that's what I need to do.

I close the door of the TARDIS. Set a random course to somewhere where I'm familiar as I was on my orange-skied home. Earth. I need to go. At least there, I won't attract disaster…


End file.
